In order to preserve a number of documents with use of an image filing system and to make use of such documents effectively and efficiently, it is of importance that the system be used with an established scheme preliminarily formulated for the management of the documents to be stored into any memory medium under the control of the system. The fact is however that most of the users of such a system make managerial arrangements after a considerable amount of documents has been filed since the first use of the system. It may be herein noted that the "filing" of an image-bearing document involves a procedure to store into a memory medium not only the image data representative of the image read from the document but also the control data and keyword information associated with the image data.
Where documents are filed into an image filing system with no managerial scheme preliminarily established before the system is first put to use, it will be beneficial for the users of the system if there are available any additional managerial information exclusively identifying each of the documents filed.